Culbreath: Ohio should rule the MAC

Just when the dregs of summer were starting to get to me, it was there.

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Just when a vast wasteland of an empty sports schedule was staring me in the face, it was there.

Just when the thought of “My goodness, we still have 62 games of regular season baseball left” was starting to depress me, it was there.

Just when I started to feel like I was losing my mind, Mid-American Conference Football Media Day came to save me. Football: It’s just around the corner.

(Don’t get me wrong; I like baseball, but it gets to be too much after the All-Star Break. I’m all about cutting about 30-40 games out of the schedule. Come at me, Old Man Baseball.)

We all got together in Detroit earlier in the week to talk MAC pigskin, and boy did that feel good. What felt better was the preseason poll as filed by the media. I know: only a fool takes stock in preseason polls. But hear me out: the MAC Media picked the Toledo Rockets to win the West Division, and the Bowling Green Falcons to not only win the East, but to win the conference title. Cool, huh?

(Granted: the Rockets were picked mere points above Northern Illinois in the West, but we’ll set that aside for now.)

Forgetting that these polls aren’t often accurate — last year, Ohio was picked to win the East, they finished third — let’s focus on what it means: respect for both programs. The Toledo Rockets are coming into this season without a for-sure starter at quarterback. With Terrance Owens gone, coach Matt Campbell is looking at a three-man race for the position, and it’s honestly anyone’s game. And despite losing David Fluellen and Bernard Reedy, we saw loads of talent last year from Kareem Hunt, Marc Remy, Damion Jones-Moore, Alonzo Russell, Alex Zmolik … not to mention four returning starts on the offensive line. Defensively, they lose a bit on the line, but return a lot in the secondary, which means the “all-or-nothing” defense that we’ve seen in the past couple of years should start to become a bit less bipolar. Quarterback, schmarterback; the media recognizes a good thing in the Toledo Rockets.

Yes, the Huskies lost quarterback Jordan Lynch as well, but they said two years ago that they wouldn’t be able to replace Chandler Harnish, and his records were toppled in a heartbeat. I swear those Huskies have a pact with some dark force.

And as for looking down I-75, you have to show some respect for the defending champion Bowling Green, picked to repeat. Again, the press making that call despite a major change: Dave Clawson left the Falcons last year to take the open job at Wake Forest. Enter Dino Babers, a coach in the Chip Kelly school of wanting to run Eleventy-Billion plays a game. (That’s a technical term. I swear it.) It would seem foolish to take the system that already won the conference and turn it on its ear, but Coach Babers has the team loose enough to buy into it, and quarterback Matt Johnson, who exploded onto the scene last year after getting the starter’s job in Week 2, feels like they’re picking up the new system nicely. Think about the arm strength and accuracy that he had, crank it up to ludicrous speed, and then tell me you aren’t circling Nov. 19 on your calendar.

Accurate or no, the preseason poll shows that the MAC media has a lot of respect for these two programs — respect that has been earned. Both Toledo and Bowling Green will dictate play in the conference at the end of the season. You gotta take I-75 to get to Detroit for the MAC Championship Game, so this is one time where you can say that the road to Ford Field literally goes through Northwest Ohio.

Culbreath: Ode to the good Internet comment

I honestly don’t know why news outlets, Toledo Free Press and WSPD included, bother to include comment sections on their stories online. If anybody is so motivated to add something to a story, it’s never anything that actually adds anything. More likely, you’ll get someone asking “How is this news?” or what “the real story” is, or pointing out the obvious slant the reporter who penned the article has. Sports writing is not spared either: a 5,000 word masterpiece (or, in my case, a 900-word panic attack) could be tagged with just “GO BROWNS!”

So, when the perfect comment comes along, I feel like it should be celebrated. Held up as an example as to what we, as a species, is capable of.

Let’s rewind to earlier in the week: the MLB All-Star Game took place on Tuesday, and might as well have been Derek Jeter’s “This Is Your Life.” Some of what took place was pretty awesome: the game ops at Target Field used a recording of late-Yankee Stadium announcer Bob Sheppard to call up Jeter, which led to a standing ovation and a “Der-ek Je-ter!” chant. He went 2-for-2, had a pretty neat snag in the top of the first, and got a nice send-off in the fourth. But things also got laid on a little thick: all in all, Jeter’s name was mentioned no less than 100 times on the broadcast, and continued to be a point of contention, even after he was out of the game. Not to mention the hubbub that surrounded Adam Wainright’s confession that he curved a couple of fastballs to Jeet, as if it was some mortal sin.

Meanwhile, many baseball fans felt that something was missing: any sort of acknowledgement of some of the baseball greats that have passed within the last year. Tony Gwynn was amongst the most prominent, but Don Zimmer and Bob Welch are also names that left the baseball world this year. And sure, while Fox and MLB are under no obligation to recognize the deceased at an All-Star Game, it is the first time of the year that all of MLB has gathered, and it would have been a nice gesture.

After the grumblings of the disgruntled baseball viewers reached a dull roar, Fox Broadcasting and MLB released a statement, as posted to the Facebook account of reporter (and friend of University of Toledo’s Tie One On fundraiser) Ken Rosenthal:

“We are deeply saddened by the loss of Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn, an extraordinary individual whose memory we have honored in numerous ways in recent weeks. The Baseball family has sadly lost a number of people this year – including Hall of Famer Ralph Kiner, Frank Cashen, and former All-Stars Jerry Coleman, Jim Fregosi and Don Zimmer – and did not want to slight anyone by singling out one individual.”

It is there, where one of the greatest Internet comments appeared. The first comment on the post, and the best by a longshot, came from Rich McCrary, who laid it out in three simple sentences:

The best and worst thing about talking sports is that everyone has an equal voice. People like to think they know politics, but more often than not, they don’t know exactly what’s happening. Economics, both micro- and macro-, are getting further and further beyond common sense, that it’s tough to keep up. Having a pertinent opinion in sports is simple, as long as you’re paying attention, and Rich up there knocked it out of the park. Put that in the Hall of Fame.

Kaiser: Former Hen Castellanos having ‘Major’ success

On the evening of Nov. 21, the Detroit Tigers announced they had traded All-Star first baseman Prince Fielder to the Texas Rangers for second baseman Ian Kinsler. With that move, the general manager of the Tigers, Dave Dombrowski, called a press conference where he announced Detroit’s megastar Miguel Cabrera would move back to first base, leaving third base open for the 22-year-old Nick Castellanos.

With four years of minor league experience and only 18 plate appearances in the MLB, a starting spot for a World Series contending team was the rookie’s job to lose.

Last year for the Toledo Mud Hens, Castellanos posted a batting average of .278 with 18 dingers and 76 runs batted in. A natural third baseman, he was forced to move to the outfield with the expectation of competing for the job of everyday left fielder in Detroit for 2014. Needless to say, all of those plans changed in late November, and he was immediately moved back to third base.

Castellanos has been the top prospect of the Detroit Tigers since mid-2011 and has finally been given the chance to play every day with the big club in 2014. So far the young player has taken the opportunity and ran with it. In a lineup that is stacked with proven talent that includes Cabrera, Kinsler, Victor Martinez, Torii Hunter and Austin Jackson, Castellanos has opened eyes primarily batting in the six hole.

As of April 27, Castellanos is hitting .258 with 3 home runs and 13 RBIs. While those statistics don’t initially look stellar, when you take a closer look at his advanced metrics you will see why he has been so impressive, and why he will only continue to get better.

Castellanos has always been known as a bat-first player due to his ability to hit the ball hard. So far, he has been able to transfer that ability swimmingly into Major League play. Castellanos currently has a 37.7 percent line drive rate on balls that he puts in play. That’s good for second place in the entire MLB. That rate is a bit inflated and will be hard to sustain throughout the course of the entire season, but it gives him an advantage that many young hitters do not have. While many young hitters are used to pulling the baseball, Castellanos features an inside out swing that allows him to drive the ball to the opposite field. That will definitely help him to make semi-seamless adjustments against big league pitching throughout his rookie season. When pitchers try to locate the ball outside to him, Castellanos will gladly drive it over the second baseman’s or — even better — the right fielder’s head.

Another reason to expect improvement in his traditional numbers is that his BABIP (batting average on balls in play) is a mere .280, which is the 57th lowest in the MLB among all qualified players. The league average BABIP fluctuates around the .300 mark, and generally increases with the more line drives a player hits. Put simply, Castellanos is having a bit of bad luck whenever he puts the ball in play. Once some of his hits start to find gaps in the field and his BABIP increases, we will start to see an increase in his actual batting average.

Castellanos is an excellent hitter and has already shown flashes of brilliance at the big league level this season. Like most hitters, he will surely go through slumps and have to figure out how to grind through it. Major League pitchers will eventually find some of his weaknesses and he will have to adjust. So far, all signs have pointed to him being more than capable of making those impending adjustments.

Right now Castellanos is hitting the ball hard and showing fans why has been so highly touted since the Tigers drafted him. If he continues to drive the ball to all areas of the field, he could become one of the most dangerous hitters in an already deadly Detroit lineup. The Tigers are infamous for using their top prospects as currency when they are looking for proven big league talent at the trade deadline, but they held onto Castellanos for a reason. Watching young Nick Castellanos grow from a tiger cub into a possible cornerstone of the Tigers is a process that every Detroit fan should be excited for.

Cameron J. Kaiser is a senior at St. Francis de Sales High School. He blogs about the Detroit Tigers on his website ttowntiger.com.

Culbreath: Make opening day a national holiday?

The joke has always been there. Now there’s a real effort to make it happen.

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As arranged by Baseball Hall-Of-Famer Ozzie Smith (and backed by an international brewing company InBev), a petition on the White House website has been drafted in an effort to make Opening Day a national holiday.

Opening Day has always been a bit of an unofficial holiday. According to a study done by InBev, 10% of Americans have called off work to attend a game. In cities with major league teams, streets shut down to handle the influx of foot traffic. Here in Toledo, people go nuts for the Mud Hens home opener: downtown is packed solid with people either going to game 1, or going to one of the dozen or so bars that have popped up around Fifth Third Field. Even if the weather doesn’t fully cooperate (see also: last year), the fans make a day out of it.

But a national holiday?

Okay, being real for a second, anything that means a day off, I’m all about. Except, of course, because I work in broadcasting, opening day actually means a longer day for me. But I’m setting that aside for you, because I’m not exactly sure Opening Day is the day you want to declare a holiday.

Namely, because there’s more than one Opening Day.

First off, the MLB has plenty of false starts: On March 22nd and 23rd, the Los Angeles Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks are playing two games in Sydney, Australia, and they count as regular season games. Is that Opening Day? Then on Sunday, March 30th (Which is also my birthday, gift cards accepted), the Dodgers play the San Diego Padres in ESPN’s “Opening Night” game, a day before everything else kicks off. Is that Opening Day? Or is Opening Day when everybody else gets started on the 31st?

(By the way, I’m still angry that the Cincinnati Reds don’t start the season anymore.)

Secondly, when Opening Day does occur, you forget that for half of the teams, they haven’t opened their stadium yet. So you’ll have this day off, and nowhere to watch a game! You’ll have to wait until they come home, and then you’re still taking your PTO.

Finally, for us minor league markets, our season starts even later than that! The Toledo Mud Hens open their season at home on April 4th against the Louisville Bats. So the 31st (or 30th, or 22nd) date is useless to us!

On top of all that, there are other sport related days that could be holidays. We’re always talking about needing the day after the Super Bowl off, but I honestly don’t know if we could handle ourselves. Who would we talk to about the game if we couldn’t gather around the water cooler to discuss it? Then again, give it 10 years, and nobody will want to talk about the game the day after, because we’ll have all talked it out on Twitter that night. Kind of like how high school reunions have been decimated by Facebook.

It’s a neat idea, but it’s too confusing. Too many variables. Unless, you know, they want to make all of those days holidays. Now that’s a petition I’d sign.

Hens staffer’s Fan Cave bid falls short, but was fun experience

Kate Longenecker of Perrysburg had hoped to be watching Major League Baseball as part of the MLB.com Fan Cave crew, but instead she was in the control room at Fifth Third Field, running the scores, stats and television graphics for the Mud Hens’ home opener.

Longenecker made a video to state her case and it’s posted on the MLB Fan Cave website (http://bit.ly/ votelongenecker).

She’s fine with that.

“I’ve only ever gotten anywhere with an optimistic attitude, so I was depressed for only a day,” she said about not making the final cut in the Fan Cave contest.

So despite not getting to go to spring training, or move into the New York City apartment where her job would have been to watch big-league ball games and talk about it on social media, she’s filing the contest under “fond memories” and “learning experiences” and getting ready for another Mud Hens season.

“It looks like I will be running the graphics from the production booth in the suites,” Longenecker wrote in an e-mail. “Keeping track of pitch count, score, player stats, and anything else graphics related for the television broadcast.”

Longenecker — a Philadelphia Phillies fan — was one of 52 people around the country who made the next-to-last cut out of about 10,000 applications for the Fan Cave. Those 52 hopefuls all sent in videos making their cases and asking for fan votes on the MLB.com Fan Cave page. From those, 30 were chosen to go to spring training and from those, the final nine Cave Dwellers were chosen.

This year’s cave dwellers will include Alexandria “Alex” Justice, an Indians fan from Cleveland, and Ben Wietmarschen, a Reds fan from Cincinnati.

On her video, Justice, 21, claimed that, as a student and fan of “The” Ohio State University, “I’m the nuttiest fan there could be” — and as an Indians fan on top of that, she’s one of the “most dedicated heart-filled fans in baseball.”

For his video, Wietmarschen, 28, listed his five favorite personal memories of baseball, which include chucking a roll of toilet paper at his Uncle Ted when the Reds won the World Series when he was 6 and spilling a Mountain Dew from one luxury box into another at Cincinnati’s stadium at age 10.

“I wonder if [the people in the other box] remember that,” he muses in the video. “I’d like to go back and apologize.”

Longnecker said she had been rooting for fellow Phillies fan Christine Lorigo of Boston, who made the cut for spring training, and thought Tigers fan Lindsay Beaver of Sterling Heights seemed “super passionate” and would have been “fun to watch in the Fan Cave.” Tigers fan Jay Tuohey of Clawson, Mich., was also a top-30 finalist.

But from her perch at Fifth Third Field, Longenecker said she’s ready for another season.

She’ll start work about three hours before game time, making sure all the information she needs is at hand for the game and for the half-hour pregame show.

She does similar chores for the Toledo Walleye hockey team and for Buckeye Cable Sports Network. She said she prefers the faster pace of hockey games, which also lets her be more creative with her scoreboard and stat displays and, not to mention, the Walleyes’ winning season made the job more fun.

“When the team is good I just get into it,” she said.

She’s hoping to “get into it” with the Hens as well this year.

“I’m just hoping for more wins!” she wrote. “Last year when we hit August and realized we were out of the playoffs it just wasn’t as fun. … I’m looking forward to seeing some of the faces back from last year like [right fielder Ben] Guez, [left fielder Dan] Kelly, [shortstop Argenis] Diaz — and of course getting to know the new guys. I’ll definitely need to practice spelling [Matt] Tuiasosopo, our new third baseman.”

If not a winning experience, it was a learning experience for Longenecker.

“It felt great to have support from so many people from Toledo, back home in Pennsylvania, and of course from Phillies fans all over the country,” she wrote. “I learned how useful social media can be, especially when reaching out to people you wouldn’t normally have access to.”

Ironically, she cut back on her Twitter use “because during that month it kind of consumed my life!”

Major League Baseball video game reviews

Major League Baseball video game reviews by Michael Siebenaler – Toledo Free Press

Baseball season has begun so be sure to catch some Major League baseball video games with quality graphics and animations. Cross play with PlayStation 3 (PS3) and PlayStation Vita versions of “MLB 13 The Show” or try “MLB 2K13” on PS3 and/or Xbox 360 – all rated E.

“MLB 13 The Show” (Sony)

The PS3 (with full PlayStation Move capability) and PS Vita “MLB 12 The Show” versions allows players switch between both games with constant synchronization so either version presents current progress before players start or continue a game mode (season, franchise and Road to the Show). The new postseason mode and play now mode offer detailed gameplay within shorter times while new features this year include a beginner mode and other instructional elements that are perfect for new players. Online play is free. Real time MLB game broadcast presentations enhance the experience even more (***1/2).

“MLB 2K13” (2K Sports)

The “MLB 2K13”on Xbox 360 and PS3 lets players control pitching with a nice analog stick setup and a strong My Player mode where players experience more development in the minor leagues on the way to superstardom. Unfortunately, this game totally whiffs on online play. It’s gone and so are the PC, Nintendo DS, PSP, or Wii versions this year. Hardly any new enhancements or additions, but players can also win in real life in the Perfect Game Challenge, a skill-based competition with considerable cash prizes beginning on April 1, 2013 and ending on April 30, 2013 followed by a final competition (**1/2).

Perrysburg woman competes in baseball ‘Fan Cave’ contest

Kate Longenecker makes it her business to find fun ways to tell you the score. Now she’s asking you for a little bit of help to step up her game.

The Perrysburg woman is one of 52 fans of the national pastime who made the almost-final cut — from more than 10,000 applications — for Major League Baseball’s “Fan Cave.” The final winners will live in a Greenwich Village apartment, watch baseball and tweet, post and pin their opinions on social media and MLB’s own website.

Vote for Longenecker at http://bit.ly/votelongenecker.

“Who wouldn’t want to be paid to watch 2,400 baseball games, the opportunity to live in New York City and chronicle it on social media?” she asked, laughing.

Longenecker, like the other almost-finalists, made a video to state her case and it’s posted on the MLB Fan Cave website. Just scroll down until you see her in her red Philadelphia Phillies T-shirt and ball cap, then watch her spoof the Gangnam-style dance she hopes to replace with custom handshakes for each sports celebrity she meets.

“I do think I’d be an entertaining person to be in the Fan Cave,” she tells prospective voters.

Wait a minute? The Phillies? This is Toledo! Doesn’t our Major League heart belong to the Detroit Tigers?

Well, Longenecker is “Philly-born and raised,” as she says in her video, but moved to Toledo with her college boyfriend when he found a job here. She shopped her love of sports around and landed jobs with the Mud Hens and the Walleye, doing electronic graphics that keep fans up to speed on the stats that drive the games. She also does color commentary for Buckeye Cable Sports Network.

So if you’ve got the picture — fun puns are her specialty — “It’s what I make and what I create and what I do. You can be very creative with it.”

She’s hoping for more than a stretch in sports fan heaven from the Fan Cave, though. The whole idea is to get a group of fans who create buzz for the games through Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms, in addition to what they say on MLB.com. That’s an exploding trend sports organizations and sports broadcasters want to tap — Feb. 3’s Super Bowl XLVII set records for the number of fans watching the game streamed live on the Internet, and set a number of other records related to social media, according to the news site Mashable.com.

Longenecker’s also looking to get in front of that trend; she’s hoping to get some new ideas — graphics, tweets, posts, what have you — for how she lets Mud Hens and Walleyes fans know the score.

She’s already learned a thing or two — namely, how fast something can get going and growing online. Appearing on Twitter as @Klongen, she’s already developed friendships and “friendly rivalries” with some of the other finalists.

Voting at MLB.com ends Feb. 13; from the 52 videos, voters select 30 finalists who go to spring training in Arizona and then to the Fan Cave.

Family Practice: To electronic media, with love

When I was growing up there seemed to be quite the emphasis on trying to make education fun. With the constant onslaught of technological entertainment available to my children, I find it more challenging today to make sure their fun is somewhat educational. I do not fear the prevalence of computers, video games, iPods and other electronic devices in my children’s not-so-little world, however they do demand new considerations for at-home learning.

As part of one of the first generations to spend life in front of various pixilated screens, I know firsthand the learning benefits associated with a technologically advanced society. Understanding the benefits of my children’s ever-changing electronic buffet as a parent can be a little more daunting. However, I have discovered quite a treasure trove of usable knowledge hidden beneath a pop culture façade of electronic time suckage:

Super Scribblenauts: Although I don’t know its true purpose, this Nintendo DS game has become nothing more than a spelling tutor at our house. Just about anything a child can dream up will pop up in the Super Scribblenauts fantasy world if he or she can spell it correctly. One drawback is that we’re never quite certain what will pop up. My children were slightly horrified to see a deathly skeleton appear when one of them typed in their little sister’s name. As best I can surmise, Super Scribblenauts defines “Lucy” as the 3-million-year-old skeletal remains found in Ethiopia in 1974, not our favorite 2-year-old.

Accuweather.com: Any local, national or international weather website will do, but my son happened upon AccuWeather and hasn’t been the same since. What started with some investigation into possible school closings last winter has led him into full-fledged weather-watching. When a video game piqued his interest in baseball at the same time he became anxious about thunderstorm watches (or t-storms watches as he so nerve-gratingly calls them), he began cross-referencing national weather patterns with the MLB schedule. Well, that’s something dear old mom couldn’t have bribed him to learn how to do even with a 10-foot pack of Airheads Extreme.

Electronic Sports of All Sorts: Since Ohio curriculum standards don’t dictate that kids even learn the 50 United States until the fifth grade, introducing children to the ever-shrinking world around them is crucial. Again, a couple of days with a video game like FIFA World Cup Soccer can work geographic wonders that a blank map and a nagging mother generally can’t.

Between video games, online soccer and Deportes Telemundo, my son picked up the names, spellings, flags and other miscellaneous tidbits about dozens of countries around the world in a short time. Other sports carried into our home via electronic means have added to not only his U.S. geographical skills, but also to his understanding of math, strategy and problem-solving.

Disney Princesses: Elaine, my little imagineer trapped in a princess’s body, first made her electronic-devices-as-education breakthrough when she discovered that Cinderella had her own Web address. It wasn’t long after I first showed her the Internet ropes that my then 4-year-old began stalking the Disney Princesses all by herself. “Look, Mom, I just put in the D for ‘Disney’ and the princesses came up as a choice.” Well, so it did. Still, the Disney website is not as responsible for my daughter’s foray into Web browsing as the notion that wanting something badly enough will produce the know-how to acquire it.

SpongeBob SquarePants: Speaking of necessity being the mother of invention, SpongeBob is Lucy’s digitally inked sensei. Although SpongeBob has become the poster sponge for mindless children’s programming, his power of attraction was enough to lure my toddler into figuring out how to hook up and operate a portable DVD player. Additionally, SpongeBob has helped Lucy to establish a keen sense of humor beyond her 28 months, which is as important to an Irish-descended mother as anything else.

YouTube: Perhaps the nexus of the technology-meets-education universe, YouTube may just hold the power to disarm the public education system faster than Gov. John Kasich and the 129th Ohio General Assembly. I have no idea who is spending their time compiling videos that teach me how to collapse our pop-up princess tent, but I salute your valiant and no-cost-to-me effort. You are giving me the tools to show my children exactly how the earth travels around the sun and how a tsunami forms, while also allowing computernerd01, this young generation’s “Weird Al” Yankovic, to get Generation X mothers up to speed on today’s biggest pop hits, minus the correct lyrics, of course.

Fortunately for today’s parents, education is everywhere and comes in every format. If we are too quick to dismiss the good with the bad, or fail to recognize that good does exist in a world we may not fully understand, we may be brushing aside effective learning opportunities for our children.

Shannon and her husband Michael are raising three children in Sylvania. Email her at letters@toledofreepress.com.